Instant non-starter, right?

Don’t be so quick to pre-judge. The lawyer handling the case, Tom Melsheimer, previously won a $41 million judgement from a contact lens manufacturer for the very same plaintif who is bringing this suit, and he sounds confident.

“I wouldn’t have filed the case if we didn’t feel very confident in our position,” Melsheimer told me this morning as he was stepping off an airplane in Dallas. “This was a case that I liked, our firm liked, and I think we have a reasonable chance of winning.”

Melsheimer won’t say how much he hopes to charge Facebook for the patent, only that that he and Rembrandt Social Media LP, which owns the patents in question, are aiming “for a reasonable royalty.” Of course, even at a penny – or a fraction of a cent – per “like,” the billions and billions of likes that now permeate the web could quickly add up to a very big number with a lot of zeroes behind it.

One of the patents is a “method and apparatus” of created a web page diary with “multimedia references to contents of websites.” The other is a “system and method” of creative universal addresses for digital data.

Both were originally filed by a now-deceased Dutch programmer over a decade ago, ”Jos” van der Meer, who attempted to build Surfbook.com (now defunct). Apparently, Surfbook was intended to be a sort of social diary, not terribly dissimilar to Facebook — or any other social networking site.

Put them together and there’s no doubt that the two patents do describe, at least in some general way, processes of adding digital content from sites around the web to a personal profile page. The question, however, is whether that general description means that Facebook’s specific implementation of its wall, status updates, and timeline criminally infringe on the patents.

The patents are now held by that infamous type of company, a non-practicing entity, otherwise known as patent troll. Rembrandt Social Media LP, which is the specific company in this case, has previously claimed ownership of critical technologies in the digital TV and cable modems, in both cases buying patents and then ignoring agreements which were made to license those patents cheaply and easily.

“Rembrandt is a company that seeks out inventors with compelling story to tell about technology that has become core technology in a significant industry,” Melsheimer told me when I asked if the company was a typical patent troll. “It’s not an outfit that scoops up patents at a garage sale or something like that.”

The attorney firm handling the lawsuit for Rembrandt, Fish & Richardson, was founded in 1878 and has been named the “top patent litigation firm in the country” for each of the past nine years.

In other words, while this seems like a typical frivolous patent troll lawsuit, it’s probably a little more serious than the Paul Ceglia I-own-half-of-Facebook nonsense.

photo credit: iluvcocacola via photopin cc

This is a guest post by Efrat Kasznik

The inauguration of the “Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents” is a great opportunity to take another look at the U.S. patent system, and how it fares with startups and software companies.

As appears from an email to the press, laced with statements such as: “Dumbass patents are crunching small businesses”, Cuban’s incentive in endowing the Chair is triggered by the problem of troll litigation and its negative impact on startups.  Cuban takes aim at so-called “software” patents (business method patents on ideas captured in software products), which he characterizes as “stupid” patents that should have been completely abolished or at least have a shorter legal life.

While well intentioned, this new initiative misses the mark for two reasons.

First, the real problem is not with “patent IQ”, but rather with patent validity.  And second, patent quality is only one of several factors leading to the rise of troll litigation, a phenomenon that has already been recognized as having an impact on competition in a much-publicized conference held jointly by the FTC and the DOJ last December.

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) grants patent protection to “novel and nonobvious” inventions, based on prior art which existed at the filing of the patent application.  The complicated task of patent examination is further compounded by the backlog conditions at the USPTO.  The December 2012 USPTO Dashboard shows a backlog of over 600,000 patent applications, with over 500,000 new applications filed annually, and an average pendency time of 32 months.

The problem with patents that are issued under such circumstances is not whether they are inherently “dumb” or “smart”, but rather whether they should have been issued in the first place, a question that addresses the validity of the patent. Improving patent validity is preferable to eliminating entire categories of patents.

One common way to challenge the validity of a patent is by filing a patent reexamination with the USPTO.  Statistics on reexaminations filed since 1981 show that they are about equally distributed among the three main patent categories: chemical, mechanical and electrical (at 27 percent, 33 percent and 38 percent of all filings, respectively).

Overall, a staggering 92 percent of reexaminations have been successfully granted.  The recently enacted patent reform, known as the America Invents Act (AIA), further introduces a new post grant review process for filing validity challenges with the USPTO  nine months months following the issuance of new patents.

Litigation by non-practicing entities (NPEs), commonly referred to as “patent trolls”, is closely tied to the patent validity problem.  The phrase “troll” loosely defines a diverse group of entities whose business model revolves around monetizing patents through assertion — licensing or litigation.

A recent study by Boston University Law School estimates the direct costs of NPE patent assertion activity at $29 billion in 2011, up from $7 billion in 2005.  While troll litigation has long been recognized as a problem for large operating companies, Cuban is right in pointing to a new and surprising trend where troll litigation is now focused more on smaller companies.

According to recent statistics presents at the FTC/DOJ hearing in December, at least 55 percent of unique defendants in patent troll lawsuits make under $10 million per year.

That being said, Cuban’s narrow focus on eliminating the so-called “software patents” ignores the fact that troll litigation is by no means the outcome of bad patents alone.  It is propelled and enabled by an ecosystem creating “perfect storm” conditions for NPEs, namely: the availability of patents with broad claims that can be asserted against multiple defendants; plaintiff-friendly courts where large damages are awarded; and a very active patent market fueled by capital dedicated to buying and selling patents.

Curbing troll litigation will require a more holistic solution addressing the entire ecosystem, and is certainly on top of the agenda for the public and private sector.

Efrat Kasznik is president of Foresight Valuation Group. a Silicon-Valley based Intellectual Property (IP) consulting firm focused on assisting companies with valuing and managing their innovation.

She is a Lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and is a frequent speaker and author on topics related to IP valuation and strategy.  Efrat has also been involved as a co-founder and adviser with several startups, in the fields of cleantech, media and telecommunications. You can find her on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Ray Felts is North American president of crowdsource patent-research company Article One Partners; David DiGiammarino is a director with the company.

You’re a venture capitalist. You just invested in a promising startup, e-Widgets. The future looks bright. Suddenly, out of nowhere, e-Widgets gets a certified letter in the mail. The letter claims that the company’s flagship software is infringing on an existing patent. Instead of focusing on innovation that e-Widgets can bring to market, the company suddenly gets sidetracked into a legal battle that could ultimately destroy its business.

This is not an uncommon scenario.

Patent trolls, a common term for non-practicing entities (NPEs), are shell companies that do not design, manufacture or distribute products. Rather, their sole purpose is to acquire and license patents to unsuspecting businesses. Last year, NPE litigation cost tech companies $29 billion, up more than 400 percent from 2005.

The “Small Change” Hold-Up Strategy

The majority of NPE litigation consists of “nuisance suits” that target smaller companies for hundreds of thousands of dollars. NPEs take advantage of the fact that most venture-backed companies don’t have the resources of big corporate players, which often include a first-class legal team.

As a result, the venture-backed company is subject to something of an old-fashioned hold up.  Here’s how it works. The patent troll threatens to sue for significant royalties. The financial threat, business distraction and cost of defending the company disposes the startup to a lower settlement. Faced with possible ruin, the venture-backed company agrees to a tidy settlement of $20,000. If they instead choose to engage in a legal battle, the settlement threshold goes up, forcing them back to the initially intended amount. In the end, the startup takes the path of least resistance, and the NPE makes it up on volume.

This is how the patent trolls build their war chests to go after bigger fish. For example Lodsys, a well-known patent troll, has settled with about 150 iOS developers so far. Startups, meanwhile, are frustrated that instead of spending $20K to grow their business, they have to pay off a patent troll.

New Developments to Help Small Businesses

Rather than cooperating with the scheme, entrepreneurs can invest in solutions that derail patent trolls. When they do, they stop the “innovation tax” in its tracks. NPEs like the path of least resistance, so companies that earn a reputation as easy targets may be harvested repeatedly. On the other hand, companies that earn a reputation for shielding themselves against NPEs deter further attacks.

A small but growing body of resources is empowering smaller businesses to fend off NPEs. One such resource involves new ways of finding prior art, evidence that the patented idea existed prior to the patent application date. The process of finding prior art can take months (and lots of money) due to the amount and complexity of information available. The traditional solution to the prior art problem is to hire a specialist to do the search, but most VCs can’t afford the time or financial investment. New solutions can be found in crowdsourcing prior art research, tapping into multilingual experts whose collective experience and diversity of knowledge makes them efficient identifiers of prior art across languages and industries.

In addition, venture-backed companies can now access a number of resources dedicated to helping them defend themselves from litigation. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), for one, offers an excellent knowledge base and resources at EFF.org/patent. UC Berkeley has developed the Defensive Patent License (DPL), in which inventors share their intellectual property without worrying about being sued, and agreeing not to sue other members.

In the private sector, patent enforcement insurance is another tool that small businesses are increasingly considering in their fight against patent trolls.

When Will Venture-Backed Companies Stop Hiding?

Small businesses are the lifeblood of America’s economy. When innovators are forced to divert resources from productive to unproductive uses, their very existence is threatened and the implications are broad. It’s crucial for venture-backed companies to understand and prepare for the growing threat of NPEs.

photo credit: kevin dooley via photopin cc

Patent analytics firm IP Checkups wants to expose the patent portfolio owned by Intellectual Ventures, one of the largest patent trolls in the United States.

“The idea is that this information will enable startups and investors to make more informed decisions,” said Matt Rappaport, founder and CEO of IP Checkups, in a phone interview. “There is not a lot of transparency in the intellectual property field.”

IP Checkups plans to develop a resource known as Case IV Thicket, with funding raised through popular crowdfunding site, Indiegogo. Rappaport wants to raise $80,000 but hopes that the project will exceed its funding goals.

IP Checkups will use the funds to develop a free, public database of patent records — most likely, through an integration with Lex Machina’s technology, and will regularly publish their findings on a company blog.

Ultimately, they plan to create an online database of all the patents held by Intellectual Ventures and its shell companies. Using this data, analysts will be able to extrapolate broader trends, pinpoint the companies that are the most litigious, and point entrepreneurs in a direction that will help them avoid a costly and time-consuming intellectual property suit.

According to Rappaport, Intellectual Ventures owns about 40,000 patents in diverse fields from medical devices to wireless technologies. Many of these are hidden in more than 1,200 “shell companies”, which are used as a vehicle for business transactions and lawsuits. Rappaport told me that he has contacted Intellectual Ventures to inform them about the project but has yet to receive a response.

The alternative for investors and companies is PatentFreedom, a subscription-based service that claims to provide its customers with a competitive edge in intellectual property disputes.

---

Big Data and Predictive/Real-time Analytics startups: Are you looking to jumpstart development & accelerate market traction? Sign up for the SAP Startup Focus program to receive technology, support, resources and community to help you develop new applications on SAP HANA, a cutting edge database platform. Get started here, and enter promo code “VB2013″ on the form.

---

The SHIELD act – Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes, there must be a silly names contest for American legislation — would force patent trolls who lose frivolous cases to pay their defendants’ legal costs.

From the act preamble:

Essentially, SHIELD would increase the riskiness of the patent trolling business model. With the potential for vastly higher costs, deciding to sue becomes a harder decision … and suing companies using ridiculous patents becomes less attractive.

Representative Peter DeFazio from Oregon, who sponsored the bill with Representative Jason Chaffetz from Utah, certainly gets the issues:

“Patent trolls don’t create new technology and they don’t create American jobs,” DeFazio said in a statement. “They pad their pockets by buying patents on products they didn’t create and then suing the innovators who did the hard work and created the product.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation agrees, with staff attorney Julie Samuels writing: “Finally, a moment of sanity.”

The courts system has recently shown signs of being less eager to be the patent trolls heavy, but despite the America Invents act of 2011, it’s been a tough slog passing substantive patent reform. (Although more patent offices and patent review officers is one step.)

This bill is music to the ears of executives like Build.com CEO Chris Friedland, who I interviewed a month ago. Build.com was fighting patent lawsuits from as many as five trolls and formed patent defense pools to spread the legal costs.

“Frankly, the absurdness of some of this stuff is just ridiculous,” Friedland said at the time. “Are you going to patent wiping your ass?”

Perhaps, with SHIELD, there will be less point to … since the courts will no longer be a cash machine for trolls.

Image credit: Songquan Deng/ShutterStock

---

Big Data and Predictive/Real-time Analytics startups: Are you looking to jumpstart development & accelerate market traction? Sign up for the SAP Startup Focus program to receive technology, support, resources and community to help you develop new applications on SAP HANA, a cutting edge database platform. Get started here, and enter promo code “VB2013″ on the form.

---

Nathan Myrvold would probably agree.

That’s why it makes perfect sense that the first satellite office in the USPTO’s entire 220 years of existence is opening in Detroit, Michigan.

Yeah, you heard that right. Detroit.

I suppose Silicon Valley is rather hard to get office space in. And Austin is fairly warmish. Seattle … kinda rainy, no? New York? Already covered by the D.C. office, perhaps. L.A.? Too many trashy reality TV types prancing around on the streets, maybe.

The USPTO is legally required to set up at least three satellite offices within the next three years — that’s one of the stipulations of the America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011. AIA was primarily about patent reform and removing barriers to innovation.

One identified barrier is the typical three-year wait for patent approval. That’s just too long, and more examiners — in more offices — could help speed approvals of good patents and rejections of bad ones.

But … why Detroit?

The USPTO says that “the city of Detroit is an important national innovation center.” Who knew?

While declining to be named, a manager at the already-operational-though-not officially-launched Detroit office told me “we’re still looking at a concept of operations for the future offices.” I’m not sure what that means, but he also said that in the next couple of weeks the USPTO would finalize decisions and start talking publicly about other satellite offices.

Even a post pumping Detroit as an innovation center just two years ago admits that “there’s no question that Detroit falls short on many of the ingredients that propel tech-company growth.” And CBS Detroit’s Great Lakes Innovation Report contains sizzling nuggets like adult literacy classes and Office 365 events.

That said, there’s no denying a history of innovation in a city that still hosts two of the largest U.S. companies: Ford and GM. The city has seen the invention of the assembly line, the traffic signal, guerrilla marketing, and much more. Ford Sync, an innovative implementation of technology in cars, is from Detroit.

And Ford recently helped put a TechShop into Detroit, taking advantage of large numbers of mechanical engineers and scientists in the Michigan area.

But a complete innovation ecosystem is the result of serial inventors, a rich array of angel and venture investors, in-migration bringing new people and ideas, mature large companies, and universities regularly churning out new talent. And most innovation now is happening in web and internet technology — not historically a Detroit stronghold.

So surely there were better places to start.

Image credit: Spirit of America/ShutterStock

In other words, pot, meet kettle.

Patent trolls are companies that typically do not produce anything, preferring to simply acquire patents and launch lawsuits against companies that do. So Oracle cannot, strictly speaking, be classified as a patent troll. On the other hand, there are few companies more trollish than Lodsys. The company, which produces no software of its own, has filed suit against many companies, alleging, for example, that in-app purchases violates one of its patents.

Oracle’s beef? Lodsys has also targeted Oracle clients who use a web-chat feature that Lodsys believe violates a patent for — in the language of the US Patent Office — a “customer-based product module.” Essentially, it appears to be a system of embedding communication abilities within software, which could potentially be used for client support.

Oracle is stepping up for its clients, biting the bullet to protect its customers. Apple and Google have done the same thing on the in-app purchases side.

Lodsys, of course, believes it is on the side of the angels. The company’s website (which was down for some time this afternoon) claims that its inventions help companies in “reducing costs, increasing customer satisfaction, increasing revenue, providing customer data and impressions.” This may come as something of a surprise to those who have been hit up by Lodsys letters requesting cash.

The Oracle lawsuit is a good thing, in that if Lodsys’ teeth can be blunted, it will be less able to pursue small developers and software companies for processes that seem more common sense than patentable inventions. For those who think the patent system needs a complete reboot, however, it seems odd to be cheering for Oracle.

Image credit: ShutterStock

Yahoo’s new CEO, Scott Thompson, is reportedly the one driving this aggressive strategy, with many of the company’s long time tech staff opposed to this aggressive use of Yahoo’s patent portfolio.

Prominent thought leaders in the tech world are also upset. Venture capitalist Fred Wilson wrote on his blog this morning, “The patents that Yahoo! is suing Facebook over are a crock of shit. None of them represent unique and new ideas at the time of the filing. I suspect they all can be thrown out over prior art if Facebook takes the time and effort to do that.”

We’ve broken out the 10 patents at issue in the lawsuit below, along with our best efforts at a translation into plain english. Lawyers and IP folks, let us know in the comments if we’ve got anything wrong.

US Patent 7599935  Control for enabling a user to preview display of selected content based on another user’s authorization level (Filed 2005, Issued 2009)

Translation: A way to preview the stuff you will be sharing with friends.

Enabling a first user to preview content as it would be seen by a second user, if the second user had a selected user relationship with the first user. The selected user relationship may include a relationship degree, a relationship category, a relationship rating, and/or other form of relationship. In one embodiment, a user interface enables the first user to assign user relationships to portions of content and to other users. The first user selects a user relationship, which is used to access those portions of content that are associated with the first user and assigned the selected user relationship. The corresponding portions of content are used to generate a preview display for the first user, illustrating the portions of content that would be accessible to other users assigned the same user relationship or assigned a closer user relationship. Preview may be generated by a server or a local client.

US Patent 5983227 Dynamic Page Generator  (Filed 1997, Issued 1999)

Translation: A way to produce a customized homepage without to much strain on your servers.

An custom page server is provided with user preferences organized into templates stored in compact data structures and the live data used to fill the templates stored local to the page server which is handing user requests for custom pages. One process is executed on the page server for every request. The process is provided a user template for the user making the request, where the user template is either generated from user preferences or retrieved from a cache of recently used user templates. Each user process is provided access to a large region of shared memory which contains all of the live data needed to fill any user template. Typically, the pages served are news pages, giving the user a custom selection of stock quotes, news headlines, sports scores, weather, and the like. With the live data stored in a local, shared memory, any custom page can be built within the page server, eliminating the need to make requests from other servers for portions of the live data.

US Patent 7454509 Online playback system with community bias  (Filed 2001, Issued 2008)

Translation: A web radio station that learns your friends tastes.

A method for entertaining individuals according to a community having similar tastes. Information derived from user accounts form the basis of a community and collateral preferences allow other subscribing individuals to enjoy the benefit of wider-ranging tastes according to the preferences expressed by the other members of the community. Additionally, assuming that individuals sharing one preference in common may be likely to share others, the present method allows those who choose to listen to the “fan station” the ability to enjoy similar music or other data streams according to preferences expressed by the fan community as a whole.

US Patent 7747648 World modeling using a relationship network with communication channels to entities (Filed 2005, Issued 2010)

Translation: A way to connect different kinds of pages (events, friends, fans) and allow them all to message one another.

Systems and methods for information retrieval and communication employ a world model. The world model is made up of interrelated entity models, each of which corresponds to an entity in the real world, such as a person, place, business, other tangible thing, community, event, or thought. Each entity model provides a communication channel via which a user can contact a real-world person responsible for that entity model. Entity models also provide feedback information, enabling users to easily share their experiences and opinions of the corresponding real-world entity.

US Patent 7406501 System and method for instant messaging using an e-mail protocol (Filed 2003, Issued 2008)

Translation: Sending an instant message. No seriously, that’s it.

Systems and methods allowing an instant messaging user to exchange messages with an e-mail user. To the instant messaging user, the experience is a seamless exchange of instant messages; to the e-mail user, the experience is a seamless exchange of e-mail messages. Conversion of an instant message to an e-mail message includes insertion of a token into the e-mail message, and conversion of an e-mail message to an instant message includes validating a token extracted from the e-mail message.

US Patent 6907566 US Patent 7100111 and US Patent 7373599  Method and system for optimum placement of advertisements on a webpage (Filed 1999, Issued 2005)

Translation: Customizing the placement of ads based on users behavior.

A method and system for placement of graphical objects on a page to optimize the occurrence of an event associated with such objects. The graphical objects might include, for instance, advertisements on a webpage, and the event would include a user clicking on that ad. The page includes positions for receipt of the object material. Data regarding the past performance of the objects is stored and updated as new data is received. A user requests a page from a server associated with system. The server uses the performance data to derive a prioritized arrangement of the objects on the page. The server performs a calculation regarding the likelihood that an event will occur for a given object, as displayed to a particular user. The objects are arranged according to this calculation and returned to the user on the requested page. The likelihood can also be multiplied by a weighting factor and the objects arranged according to this product

US Patent 7668861 System and method to determine the validity of an interaction on a network (Filed 2007, Issued 2010)

Translation: A way to assign a value in order to screen for bad behavior or spam.

A system and method are disclosed for classifying a user interaction on a network. A user interaction is identified on a network and user interaction data is collected relating to the user interaction on the network. The user interaction data includes an aggregate measure data and a unique feature data. The user interaction data is processed to generate a value score for the interaction. A classification of the user interaction is determined based on the value score.

US Patent 7269590 Method and system for customizing views of information associated with a social network user(Filed 2004, Issued 2007)

Translation: Setting your profile so that is displays on certain info to certain friends.

A method, apparatus, and system are directed towards managing a view of a social network user’s personal information based, in part, on user-defined criteria. The user-defined criteria may be applied towards a user’s relationship with each prospective viewer. The user-defined criteria may include degrees of separation between members of the social network, a relationship to the prospective viewer, as well as criteria based, in part, on activities, such as dating, employment, hobbies, and the like. The user-defined criteria may also be based on a group membership, a strength of a relationship, and the like. Such user-defined relationship criteria may then be mapped against various categories of information associated with social network user to provide customized views of the social network user.

h/t Paid Content and CNET

Image via Flickr user Yodel Anecdotal

“Yahoo has a responsibility to its shareholders, employees and other stakeholders to protect its intellectual property,” a Yahoo spokesman said in an e-mailed statement to the NYT. “We must insist that Facebook either enter into a licensing agreement or we will be compelled to move forward unilaterally to protect our rights.”

One has to wonder if Yahoo sees Facebook as particularly vulnerable right now, in the months before their big IPO. Uncertainty over litigation could hurt the stock, meaning Facebook would feel pinched to settle in a short time, rather than drag things into the courts.

Reactions from the tech world were not pretty. “Yahoo is now a patent troll, how profoundly disappointing,” wrote venture capital investor Brad Feld.

Yahoo recently brought on board a new CEO, Scott Thompson, a former CTO who said he would bring the company back to a focus on technology. The Financial Times reports that this was the real impetus behind the move. “One person familiar with Yahoo’s deliberations denied that the approach to Facebook was prompted by its imminent IPO. Rather, it reflected the hunt by new Yahoo chief executive Scott Thompson to boost the performance of all aspects of the company’s business, the person said.”

As DealBook mentions, this isn’t the first time Yahoo has done a patent shakedown just before and IPO. It settled with Google a mere ten days before their IPO, collecting a healthy chunk of pre-IPO stock for its troubles.

Nathan Myhrvold

But today, Intellectual Ventures has sued nine big technology companies in its first-ever patent-infringement lawsuits. The company filed suits in federal court in Delaware against Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro and Check Point Software Technologies in computer security. It also sued chip makers Elpida Memory, Hynix Semiconductor, Altera, Lattice Semiconductor and Microsemi (which recently bought Actel).

Is it time to call Myhrvold a patent troll? Patent trolls buy patents and sue companies in order to get royalties. They tend not to create anything innovative. The answer seems to be yes.

“Over the years, Intellectual Ventures has successfully negotiated license agreements with some of the top technology companies in the world,” said Melissa Finocchio, Intellectual Venture’s chief litigation counsel, in a press release. “However, some companies have chosen to ignore our requests for good faith negotiations and discussions.”

In an interview this morning, she added, “We can’t control how people want to label us. We are no different from any other company in the high-tech space that owns intellectual property.”

Actually, a lot of other tech companies make stuff. In that respect, they can be counterattacked if they sue. Without its own product companies, Intellectual Ventures is immune from such responses.

Bellevue, Wash.-based Intellectual Ventures has amassed thousands of patents over the years and has hired lots of experts to create inventions in-house which are then licensed to other companies. Myrhvold is a polymath and has a funny, boisterous laugh. He has expertise in geophysics, physics, math, economics, photography, and paleontology. But perhaps my favorite thing about him is he is a “sous vide” gourmet chef (where you cook food inside a vacuum-sealed plastic bag).

He has insisted over the years that he is not a patent troll. His company has indeed created a lot of groundbreaking technology in the fields of medicine, computer science and chips. So do you think he’s a troll? Please let us know in our poll below and explain your choice in the comments section.

Online Surveys – Zoomerang.com

On Friday, Allen’s licensing arm, Interval Licensing, filed patent infringement lawsuits against Google, Apple, Facebook, AOL, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, eBay, and Netflix. Notably absent was Microsoft, which Allen co-founder with Bill Gates.

I met David Liddle, the Xerox PARC veteran who started Interval Research with Allen, for an interview in the 1990s. His researchers attacked interesting problems, such as why girls dropped out of technology earlier than boys. Purple Moon spun out of Interval Research to make video games for girls. It was an admirable attempt, but it didn’t work. I thought it was good that Allen, who had made billions of dollars at Microsoft, tried to invest in new technology. You can’t fault him for undertaking the noble work of innovation. It’s also commendable that he’s giving away most of his $13 billion fortune.

But nobody likes it when someone who loses in the market tries to come back and make a comeback in the courts. Now it looks like Interval patented basic operations of web sites that seem pretty obvious — and therefore should not have been granted patents. They govern the navigation of audiovisual data on a web site, allow information to be located quickly, and present images to get users’ attention. If Interval Research had never existed, these “inventions” would have happened anyway.

It’s just unconscionable to try to hold up these companies for innovating, forging ahead, providing jobs and doing what Allen didn’t have the patience to do. Allen should withdraw the lawsuit, or the courts should toss it for the thinly-veiled highway robbery that it is.